


Common Ground In The Garden Of Good and Evil

by idrilhadhafang



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren (comic)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Ben Solo is a Mess, Body Horror, Burns, Canon-Typical Violence, Creepy Fluff, Dark Ben Solo, Disturbing Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Heroes to Villains, Implied Violence, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Knights of Ren Training, Kylo Ren Backstory, Minor Poe Dameron/Ben Solo, Nightmares, Other, POV Ben Solo, Past Character Death, Past Violence, Pilot Ben Solo, Possibly Ren/Ben Solo if you squint, Post-The Rise of Kylo Ren #2, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Protective Ben Solo, Ren (Rise Of Kylo Ren) The Stepford Smiler, Ren (Rise of Kylo Ren) Backstory, Scars, The Dark Side of the Force, The Force, The Light Side of the Force, The Ren Isn’t Just The Lightsaber, The Rise of Kylo Ren Speculation, The Rise of Kylo Ren Spoilers, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings, Weird Fluff, Worldbuilding, Young Ben Solo, in a weird way, knights of ren backstory, not yet Kylo but not yet a Jedi Ben Solo, villain backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:41:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22342750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang
Summary: After Elphrona, Ben Solo goes to Vanrak to find Ren.
Relationships: Ben Solo & Ren (The Rise of Kylo Ren)
Kudos: 5
Collections: The Rise Of Kylo Ren Compliant Fics, Trope Bingo: Round Fourteen





	Common Ground In The Garden Of Good and Evil

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Loss of Innocence
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing. 
> 
> Author’s Notes: I should be working on Backwards With Clarity (my time travel fic), but this kind of hit me. Also, Ren’s backstory wasn’t really planned (too much); it just occurred while I was writing.

Vanrak. Taking the route that would get to Vanrak was a long road, but Ben was relieved when he saw the surface of the planet as he came out of hyperspace. He’d sent a message to Poe long ago, imploring him, whatever he did, not to try and find Ben. It would destroy Poe, emotionally (as well as fatally) if he saw what Ben was doing. Following Ren’s voice from the mask that Ben had found on Elphrona, and thus taking the first step on a path that...was he meant to follow it? He wasn’t evil. If only his knowledge of good and evil hadn’t become so muddled...  
  
Ben landed and exited the _Grimtaash,_ (after telling GeeGee to stay behind), his lightsaber in hand. It felt odd carrying it; the lightsaber that he carried really had nothing to do with the boy he was now. Nineteen years old, having survived his uncle’s attempt to murder him — his own uncle. How broken was he that his own uncle thought he deserved to die? — and now on the jungle planet of Vanrak in the Mid Rim, he was seeking out the man who was like a pinprick of clarity in this mess.   
  
For a moment, he thought that it was a set-up, a trap. Or even as simple as a lie — could Ren be trusted? After all, their first meeting, Ren had tried to kill him. (Yet he had offered Ben the opportunity to join him. Maybe he saw Ben as useful somehow)  
  
Footsteps. Rather crunchy footsteps at that. Over twigs, over branches, over grass...Ren arrived, an imposing figure covered in burns. Even looking at him, the numerous burn scars that seemed to all but discolor his skin, making it look rusty red except for one unscathed part of his arm, Ben couldn’t help but feel like a scream was building up in his throat, all but threatening to come out, but being frozen there.   
  
Even the fact Ren was unmasked did nothing to assuage Ben’s feeling of utter wrongness. His face shouldn’t almost look like someone’s father. And yet...this man was the closest he could run to now.   
  
“I knew you’d find your way here,” Ren said. Even his voice, without the mask, sounded casual, normal. Almost jovial. Someone so friendly and affable shouldn’t be a Dark Sider. _But wouldn’t it be easier,_ Ben thought, _Just to persuade someone to your cause if you seem affable and friendly?_  
  
“I thought you’d go back on your word.” Ben said.   
  
Ren snorted — a bit too normal of him, Ben thought. “I follow the _ren,_ kid. No one said anything about random acts of stupidity being part of it. Even if some people think so.” A beat. “And I think these people have been playing too many simulations.”  
  
“I don’t know what to believe,” Ben said.   
  
Ren nodded. “Come inside,” he said. “The Knights’ ship is parked here. We can talk a bit.”  
  
***  
  
Even entering the Knights of Ren’s ship, the _Night Buzzard,_ Ben couldn’t help but give the Knights of Ren a wide berth, hand carefully keeping away from his lightsaber. Ren turned towards the other Knights. “He’s our guest,” he said. “Play nice.”  
  
Ben raised an eyebrow. “I’m your guest now?”  
  
A shrug from Ren. “For the moment.”  
  
“The Emperor didn’t invite my uncle to have a drink with him.”  
  
“Well,” Ren said. “That was his mistake. I’d say it’s better to gently persuade your enemies than blatantly terrorize them. They get less angry at you.” A beat. “Of course, the Emperor kind of deteriorated tactics-wise during the Galactic Civil War. No disrespect to him.”  
  
Ben was too rattled to really contest that point.   
  
They sat in the main hold, a surprisingly simple room. Ben couldn’t help but think that it was almost bleak-looking, with its dark palette. It was hard, he thought, to imagine calling it “home”. Even looking at the mugs of hot caffa on the table, looking around the room, Ben couldn’t help but think of a strange prison out of a dark fairytale.   
  
Ren raised an eyebrow. “Kid, if I wanted to kill you, we’d be dueling right now.”  
  
“It’s just...I didn’t think I’d come here. I didn’t want it to end up like this.” Ben ran a hand through his hair.   
  
Ren’s eyes focused carefully on him. It struck Ben, even looking into blue eyes that were surprisingly gentle, that Ren felt _sorry_ for him. Why him? He, Ben Solo, the boy with the galaxy screaming in his head.   
  
“Tell me what happened,” Ren said.   
  
Ben supposed he didn’t have a choice. After all, Ren was all he had now. He’d killed Voe, Hennix and Tai. He couldn’t tell Poe the truth. He couldn’t go to his mother, or his father. They’d never understand why he did what he did. So he told Ren. Told Ren about everything that had happened since Elphrona, including when Casterfo had revealed his true heritage.   
  
“And I — I don’t want it.” Ben forced himself to look away. He didn’t want to cry in front of Ren. “It’s too big. I don’t want to be related to...to someone who betrayed the Jedi, who abused his children, who killed younglings. I want to be someone else. I’d do anything to be someone else. And after people learned that I was Vader’s grandson, they hated me...”  
  
“Oh, _did they?”_ Ren said. If Ben didn’t know better, he could have sworn that Ren actually sounded _angry._ “I’d say you were right to kill them.”  
  
“I — I didn’t set the Academy on fire, but I good as killed them...”  
  
Ren’s unburnt hand squeezed Ben’s shoulder. Ben knew that he should be repulsed. Instead, he felt oddly comforted. Like this man, this burnt creature, saw who he was and still thought he was worth something. The Light Side had seen him as a monster, shown him no compassion. The Dark Side...  
  
Ben paused. Was that enough?  
  
“You didn’t kill them,” Ren said. “Maybe it was the will of the Shadow.”  
  
“But it didn’t have to — ”  
  
“Even after what they did to you, kid?” Ren said. “You couldn’t help who your grandfather was. Though if anything...your grandfather wasn’t the monster that the galaxy made him out to be. But I digress. Tell me more.”  
  
Ben told him. Told him about Luke standing over his bed with a lightsaber ignited, about having no choice but to kill Voe, Hennix and Tai. And he blinked. _Stang it — I can’t cry in front of him._  
  
“What was so horrible,” Ben said, “About me that my _uncle_ thought I deserved to die?”  
  
“Nothing.” Ren’s voice was soft. “Kid...he was afraid of you. Of how much you could accomplish, achieve. That’s the problem with those who follow the Brilliance; they fear those not like them. Like all cults, all oppressive religions, they want to eliminate anyone who’s not like them. Why do you think that they hate those who follow the Shadow so much?”  
  
“But you’re...” Ben couldn’t finish the sentence. Good people didn’t try to kill their own family members, did they?  
  
“ ‘Evil’ is pretty simplistic, kid. I am what the _ren_ made me, no more, no less.”   
  
“But it’s wrong,” Ben argued. “You can’t just...kill people.”  
  
Even that defense sounded so feeble, so weak.   
  
“Kid,” Ren said, “Neither side’s hands are clean. Really.” A beat. “You should rest. Don’t worry; if any of my Knights try to get to you, I’ll kill them myself.”  
  
“Okay.” Ben headed off to one of the available rooms. Falling asleep there, he thought, he might as well be sleeping in the Corellian hells.   
  
***  
  
“...Master, you’re wasting your time.” One of the Knights’ voices, no doubt. Even as Ben woke from a nightmare about his mother trying to strangle him in his crib, he couldn’t help but find the Knight’s voice muffled and ugly-sounding. “If I may, why not pick up the search for Trias’ daughter?”  
  
“The boy’s our guest. And he is strong. Not completely trained, but stronger than he knows,” Ren said. “And he’s neither truly Light Side nor truly Dark Side. He’s unique.”  
  
“He doesn’t seem receptive to what you have to say.”  
  
“Oh, he’ll come around. They usually do.”  
  
Footsteps. Ben sat up, and Ren entered the room. “Thought I heard you,” he said. “Bad dream?”  
  
“It’s not relevant,” Ben mumbled.   
  
Ren sat down in a chair across from the bed. “You always have nightmares?”  
  
“Jedi don’t have nightmares.” Ben muttered stubbornly.   
  
“You’re resisting, aren’t you?” Ren said. “You’re confused...and we’re easier to get angry at than your uncle.”  
  
Ben froze. The worst part was that Ren was right.   
  
“I don’t blame you, kid.” Ren said.   
  
“Don’t.” Ben didn’t know what to think anymore. He only knew that he was unraveling.   
  
“It wasn’t your fault, kid,” Ren said. “Never. Skywalker was a self-righteous idiot who somehow thought his father was worth sparing...but not you. Because he was blinded by his desire for a father. Because the Brilliance’s talk of all life being sacred really was just talk.”  
  
“You’re...making sense.”  
  
Ren continued. “We wouldn’t have gotten this cool ship if not for what we did,” he said. “We raided it. Liberated it from guards who were mistreating their prisoners. Who neither Jedi nor Republic would have bothered to help. Because they think compassion’s reserved for those who are of the ‘right’ bloodline, the ‘right’ circumstance.”  
  
“And you know compassion?” Ben turned over on his side to face Ren.   
  
“You can’t believe that the _ren_ can hear those in need and want to help them?” Ren said. “Revan and Malak never would have gotten their start if that was the case.”  
  
Ben nodded. “Why are you being kind to me?”  
  
“Because when I saw you on Elphrona, I didn’t just reach out to you because you were powerful. I reached out to you because I knew you were alone. Because you were rare. The only child of a union between Brilliance and Shadow, and I knew you needed someone to help you find your place in all this.”  
  
Ben wanted to protest, say that he needed no one’s pity, but Ren was right. All that power and having almost no clue what to do with it. Being alone.   
  
“You’re not alone,” Ren said, softly.   
  
Ben sat up. He studied Ren, studied the burns that discolored his skin. And more than that, he could feel something more in Ren. Underneath the friendly, almost jovial exterior was a terrible, ever-expansive loneliness.   
  
“Neither are you,” he said.   
  
(He had no idea that he would have a similar conversation with a scavenger on Ach-To ten years later, like he had taken the role of Ren, and she the role of who Ben used to be. Like poetry, it rhymed)  
  
Ren raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t expect you to feel bad for me.”  
  
“Someone had to,” Ben said. “Once.”  
  
***  
  
The second morning on Ren’s ship, Ren approached Ben. “This isn’t how we usually do things,” Ren said, “But Snoke wants you trained. I didn’t really see what you could do, on Elphrona. I sensed it, but seeing is different than sensing.”  
  
Ben nodded.   
  
“Well, kid,” Ren said. “Show me what you’ve got.”  
  
Ben could say, even though Ren beat him, he still did a good job. Even as Ren helped him to his feet, Ren smiled — had Ben ever seen him actually smile? “Kid,” he said, “You’re good. I say Skywalker held you back too long — not that that’s a shocker.”  
  
“He did,” Ben said. “Lord Ren...”  
  
“Please, just ‘Ren’. We’re friends here.”  
  
 _All at once, I’m his friend,_ Ben thought. Even that concept was hard for him to process.   
  
“None of the other Knights have lightsabers,” Ben said.   
  
“Astute,” Ren said. “Why do you think that is?”  
  
Ben bit his lip. “I think,” he said, “If the _ren_ is your religion, of sorts...”  
  
“Close. The lightsaber as the _ren..._ well, Brendol’s idiot son thought I was just worshipping an inanimate object. The lightsaber as the _ren_ is just a symbol. A symbol of what the _ren_ can do. The _ren_ proper is a word from my homeworld, Sikandar.” The way Ren looked, he had that sort of look like he missed his homeworld somehow.   
  
“What does it mean?” Ben said.   
  
“It has many meanings, but the most common one is ‘will’. The will of nature, the will of the Shadow.” Ren paused. “I’m the only former Jedi who’s part of the Knights.”  
  
Ben stared at him. “You were a Jedi?”  
  
Ren shrugged. “Are you surprised? It’s usually how it starts. I was a Jedi. Serving the Brilliance was much like living in a gilded cage — it’s pretty, but it’s hard to be happy if you’re not free. It didn’t help that I saw so much apathy among the Council. Too much of it. There’s a lot of speculation as to why the Jedi didn’t do more. I think it was mostly apathy. I was like you, kid. I heard the screaming of the galaxy in my head, and I wanted it to stop.”  
  
It was odd, but Ben almost wanted to touch Ren’s hand. Comfort him, console him.   
  
Ren continued. “I left. Of course...my Master didn’t like that. She tracked me down and she must have thought that I’d been brainwashed. That I’d snapped. I wasn’t that much older than you were now. I tried to talk her down, she tried to talk me down, and neither one of us gave so we fought. And she kept saying that she could take me back to the Council, help me. Make me _better._ I don’t know which one of us accidentally set the facility on fire. But she died. I burned.” There was no trace of cheerfulness in Ren’s face; he just seemed sad now. Quietly sad, but sad all the same. “I came to, and I don’t think that there was a part of me that wasn’t burned. Except my face. I guess the mask spared that. The least important thing. And losing my Master allowed me to see the Brilliance’s cruelty for what it was. Trying to keep balance while lives were lost.”  
  
Ben swallowed. Already, he wanted to comfort Ren, to tell him everything was okay. Even though it wasn’t. Ren had made a break for the fence and gotten punished. “What was your Master’s name?”  
  
“Ekari,” Ren said. “She was a good woman. So very misguided, though. She thought the Jedi had nothing but the best intentions. She loved people — the sort of love that would make her kill the galaxy to preserve them.”  
  
“And you loved her,” Ben said. “You embraced the _ren_ even more because you loved her.”  
  
Silence.   
  
“Beyond logic,” Ren finally said. “There’s a reason I put the scars on display, kid. To show I survived. That I am not lesser. That I was reborn in fire. Your grandfather hid his scars. Partly out of practicality, partly out of shame. I am not lesser for them. But also to remember her. Take what hurts the most and be stronger for it.”  
  
Ben swallowed. Right now, just when he thought he couldn’t respect Ren more, Ren gave him more reasons to. And perhaps Ren could help him. Ben had never belonged in the Jedi Order. They didn’t know him. Only Poe, the man he loved, did — and Ren, his friend. The man he could be, who channeled his suffering into strength.   
  
“Show me how,” he said. “Teach me the ways of _ren,_ and we’ll save the galaxy together.”  
  
Ren smiled. For a moment, he seemed back to his old self. “Ben Solo,” he said, “It would be an honor.”


End file.
